


Navigating the Uncomfortable World of a Fake Marriage

by tapdancinglorax



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Dan is worse, Detective Dan Howell, Fake Artist Dan Howell, Fake Marriage, Fake Teacher Phil Lester, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Phil is better, Slow Burn, Spy Phil Lester, The Agency - Freeform, They don't know how to fake being married, but they both are still terrible at it, dan is awkward, really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-23 10:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15603879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tapdancinglorax/pseuds/tapdancinglorax
Summary: Daniel Howell, a detective assigned to a large drug bust case, looses his target and turns to the Agency for help. Little did he know that would end with him in a fake marriage to Phil Lester, a man he's barely known for a month (and is a little too sunny for Dan's tastes.) But, through a series of strange and exciting misadventures (Phil calls them bonding moments) (Dan calls them Phil Lester you are a giant klutz how are you a spy) they grow to be friends... and a little more.





	1. Chapter One

Daniel Howell had met Phil Lester three weeks ago.  
Dan had been referred to the Agency after a long, long line of officials who said the same thing, “We can’t help you.” That, Dan had discovered, had been a lie.  
He’d been on the verge of a giant drug bust, when out of nowhere the man disappeared. Vanished. All of his buddies and associates, too. And Dan, the headstrong detective he was, wasn’t giving up. Not at all. Not at all.  
The Chief of the London Police Department had said, and he quotes, “Look, buddy, if he’s out of London, we can’t do anything. It’s in the hands of someone else now.”  
Dan didn’t like that answer.  
So he’d done some digging (and had some strings pulled and favors cashed in) and then spent a month with the Agency, training and doing more digging to try to find their drug lord, and then, three weeks ago, he met Phil Lester, a sunny man who’s former partner, his brother, Martyn Lester, had just been promoted, and, most importantly, was his new partner.  
They had been an awkward three weeks.  
See, Phil was Agency trained, which meant he was about a thousand times better than Dan at nearly everything. Phil also was like the polar opposite of Dan. He hadn’t spent a day, not one mission, without a partner, while Dan has spent his first two years (what he considered the worst of his life) chained to a grumpy old man, who didn’t even let Dan collect evidence on his own (he was pretty useless, but he wasn’t that useless.) Dan had worked alone since, which, combined with his nonexistent love life, had made him pretty useless socially. That was not a good thing when meeting your new partner for the near future.  
Partners, both on the mission and in life, according to the fake marriage license the Agency had procured and summoned up halfway through the third meeting. Phil had taken the news well. Dan, not so much.  
***  
“I’ve known Phil for eight days and you now expect us to act like we’re married?!”  
“I’m sure you’ve gone undercover before. This won’t be a challenge, I would hope, Mr. Howell.”  
Dan had forgotten the mission director’s name.  
“Sure.”  
“He’ll be up for it, I’m sure,” Phil said, flashing a charming smile, “Director Jones. And, if he flops, I’ll be there to cover his tracks. And also I won’t let that happen.”  
The director seemed to loosen up a little bit.  
Dan rubbed his temples.  
***  
Phil tossed his final suitcase into the back of the black suburban. Dan, a fan of small vehicles, had disapproved of the car choice, but the director had nixed the idea of a smaller (and flashier) sports car almost immediately.  
“It’d look out of place in Waterbeach,” Phil had explained.  
Waterbeach. Of all the places in the world to move your drug cartel, why Waterbeach? It was a mystery unsolved, but Dan had a small suspicion it had to do with the small police force that didn’t have to deal with much on the daily. A 5,000 person village wasn’t exactly bustling with crime.  
Dan climbed in the passenger seat, leaning the seat back a little and closing his eyes. This was his last moment of peace for… a while, if the Agency was to be believed.  
Director Jones had said that they absolutely could not rush the drug bust. Phil had said these missions in the past had lasted anywhere between one and four months, as they worked to uncover the suspect and then gain their trust, which would eventually lead to them being able to find the whereabouts of the drugs.  
This time, they knew the suspect, which was helpful.  
Unfortunately, he was also a master of disappearing. That was not helpful.  
That was why this was projected to take more than a couple of weeks. Because the man would be nigh impossible to find. The car they had had been tracked to Waterbeach before they found it crashed in a ditch. That’s where the mystery began. The Agency didn’t know if they stayed in Waterbeach, or there was a car switch before they headed farther north. So task one was figuring out if their lovely ol’ drug lord and his goonies were still lurking in Waterbeach, or if they’d headed up to Manchester or something.  
Dan hoped it would be Waterbeach, if only for the fact he wanted to get out of a faked relationship with a spy.  
Honestly, pretending to be with Phil wasn’t the problem. Phil was really nice, even if he was a little too sunny sometimes. It was the socializing and “being married” part that got to Dan. He hadn’t been in a serious relationship for literally years, let alone living with someone you’re supposed to want to spend your entire life with. And yeah, there was also the slight issue of they’d only known each other for a month.  
Wooooooooooo.  
Phil climbed in the car.  
“Got everything?”  
“Yeah.”  
“To Waterbeach, then!”  
Dan turned over and leaned against the window. These were going to be a long couple of months.  
***  
Phil sighed, bored on the somewhat long car ride to Waterbeach. They had a house the Agency set up there, which meant they’d just shoved all their stuff to make the house look “personal” into the back of the suburban, so at least they weren’t having to follow a moving van going at the speed of a snail, but they were still stuck in the stupid traffic. Dan had fallen asleep almost as soon as they left, which had left Phil to fend for himself on the road. He wasn’t the greatest driver to start with, and he did not need to go to sleep on the steering wheel.  
They were nearly there, though, and he hadn’t killed anyone yet, so all was well.  
Siri told him this was his turn.  
He turned.  
Dan looked up.  
“You’re a terrible driver, you know that, right?”  
“No.”  
“Well, you are.”  
“Hey, how long have you been awake? I needed entertainment so I wouldn’t fall asleep.”  
“See, terrible driver. I never went to sleep, you dingbat.”  
“Language, Howell.”  
“Dingbat is not considered ‘language,’ you dingbat.”  
“It is in the Lester household.”  
“Lucky for me I’m not a Lester.”  
“According to our marriage license you are.”  
“It’s fake and we’re the Howell-Lesters, remember?”  
“I thought we agreed on Lester-Howell?”  
“Nope.”  
“Don’t call me a dingbat and we’ll go with Howell-Lester.”  
“Nice try, mate. It says Howell-Lester on the license.”  
“Lies.”  
“Truths. I told the director we agreed on that.”  
“I hate you.”  
“Right back at you, dingbat.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Living with a spy is a blessing and a curse.

The house was cool. Phil didn’t know if that made sense, but as he looked around the dark room, empty save new, uncomfortable looking furniture and a few of the doctored photos of Dan and him. Those pictures held fake memories, the kind that most people would laugh warmly about and go on to tell the story about how Aunt Suzie fainted when she realized little Philly was marrying boy, but instead they had stiff, rehearsed stories that felt as cold as this mostly-empty room.

Phil shivered.

He sat the box he was carrying (marked in big bold letters LIVING ROOM) and backed out the open door, trying to get back into the warmth of the sun. He backed into something sharp, that dug into his back like a stone.

“Hey,” Dan said, obviously annoyed, “Watch out.”

Phil sidestepped, one foot ending up in the bushes. Speaking of cold.

He didn’t think Dan liked him very much. The feeling wasn’t mutual, Phil actually thought Dan was quite a nice man. He was just oddly standoffish, and a little jumpy. Phil was almost certain it was anxiety. He’d seen it time and time again in his colleagues, in Martyn, and in himself, if he was being honest with himself. He wasn’t honest on the forms, though, because it wasn’t that bad. (Hint: it was.)

Anxiety made sense.

He just wished they’d had a moment to actually get to know each other before they were married, for Pete’s sake. According to Dan, he’d come to the Agency for help in this case months ago, so why could they not have met then? Martyn’d just been promoted, and according to Director Jones, they had been piecing this plan together since then. Why couldn’t they have built a friendship before they were told they have to “be in love.”

Just trust the Agency, that’s what Phil’s head said as he went to grab another box.

***  
Dinner was full of awkward silence.

They sat across from each other, picking at the takeout Dan had gone to pick up earlier.

“Soooooo,” Phil said, tired of the tension in the air, “I’m Phil. I like plants, I’m a spy, and I hate cheese.”

“I’m Dan. I like black, I’m a detective, and I have no opinions on cheese.”

That went nowhere.

***

They sat down after dinner to watch some show. Dan had no clue what it was, he just slipped into the folds of the couch and pulled out his phone, the TV background noise.

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” Phil said, dragging himself to the door. Dan looked up.

There were four people at the door, a man, a woman, and two kids. They had a short conversation with Phil that ended in the lady handing Phil a casserole and Phil shutting the door, a little to loud and a little too aggressively for Dan’s taste. Phil shuffled over to the window, peering out, obviously watching the people leave. He clicked the locks down and pulled the blinds shut.

“Get the doors.”

“What?” Dan said, dropping his phone on his chest, “Why?”

“Get. The. Doors.”

“Phil you need…”

Phil’s eyes darted around and he pressed a finger to his lips.

“What the hell…”

Phil slammed a hand over Dan’s mouth. “Get the doors now.”

Phil promptly turned the casserole over on the counter, and started digging in it.

“Hey man, what the hell are you doing?!”

“SHUT UP!” Phil yelled, extracting a wire from the casserole, crushing it and depositing it in the trash can, “They found us. Now would you please get the doors?”

Dan nodded, backing up before sprinting off to lock the back door. When he came back, having secured the windows in the back of the house as well, Phil discarded the casserole and had collapsed at the dining table. Dan went to lock the window by the sink.

“I got it,” Phil said. Dan joined him at the table.

“What was that?”

“Tiny microphone.”

“No, I got that, I mean the doors and stuff.”

“Your drug dealer found us.”

“Already?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

“Dan, there was a microphone in the casserole.”

“But how did you know?”

“Nuclear family shows up in a electric car. That’s not damning, until they say, “We’re your neighbors down the road!” and you realize the car is parked in what they think is a good hiding spot. The kids never speak, and the man bumbles through an odd sounding speech. Both kids stand rock still, but never make eye contact with you. However, when they look at each other, they start giggling. Lady slaps them, and motion towards you in what she thinks is an inconspicuous way. Kids straighten up. Lady shoves casserole at you, and they give the fakest smiles you ever see and stand there until you shut the door. They then pile back into the electric car, which, mind you, is silent and the kind we use for stealth missions, and drive the opposite direction from where they said they live. Not normal, and looks and sounds like bad spy work.”

“So those kids are spies. Right.”

“Nope. Here’s what really happened. Drug cartel makes a ton of money, right? So they find someone the Agency fired and hire him, paying double whatever the dude is making wherever else they're working. Dude trains his people, and they happen to have some kids. So when our ex-agent notices me moving in with a dude who had been on his bosses drug case, he tells his boss, and he send over a couple of half trained idiots and their kids. Boom. Case closed.”

“Is this what they teach you in spy school?”

“Yeah, this, math, and ballet.”

“Ballet?”

“It’s useful, believe it or not.”

“Sure thing, twinkle toes.”

“That’s worse than dingbat!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y'all for reading! I'm really enjoying writing this story. I know I said updates would come on Monday or Tuesday, but I've been sick and it's been hard to move, let alone write. I'm excited for you to see what happens next. As always, kudos, comments, and reblogs over on Tumblr (I'm to-narnia-and-back-again, if you were wondering) are incredibly appreciated and make my day. Thank you so much- Cole.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I've had in mind for basically a whole month, but every time I sat down to work on it, something came up and I never really got any work done on it. I'm really excited to be working on it, and I'm pumped to share it with you. I'm impossibly busy right now, so expect weird, irregular updates, but I'll try (Keyword: try) to get one chapter up a week. That should be doable. For now, thank you for reading. If you came here from Tumblr, please reblog there. If you enjoyed it, comments and kudos always make me squeal a little (on the inside). I also have some other works up, if you want to check those out. Thank you so so much for reading, and have a lovely day! - Cole


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